The Sixteen Burdens

by David Khalaf

  The Lollipop Guild.

  “I know where we’re going,” Gray said.

  “Where?” she asked.

  Gray didn’t respond. He didn’t want her running off to tell the police, not until he could confirm it himself.

  “Well?” she said. “How are we supposed to work as a team if you don’t tell me?”

  “We ain’t a team,” Gray said. “I work on my own.”

  She crossed her arms.

  “Driver, pull this car over right now.”

  “We’ll lose them!” Gray said. “Driver, keep going.”

  The driver glowered at them in his rear-view mirror. He pulled over into the slow lane. They began to lose Pickford’s car in the traffic.

  “I obey whoever’s paying.”

  “I am!” Gray said. He reached into his pocket but came out with only pennies.

  The young woman removed a crumpled dollar from her coin purse. She handed it to the driver.

  “Now,” she said to Gray, “Are we stopping, or are we working as a team?”

  “Come on, dollface,” he pleaded.

  She crossed her arms. Gray had no choice; he’d have to let her tag along.

  “We’re going to the circus,” he said.

  She smiled.

  “There, that wasn’t so hard. And don’t call me dollface.”

  Gray pulled his fedora over his eyes and pretended to nap.

  “I’m Elsie,” she said.

  She cleared her throat. Gray tipped his hat up to see her holding out her hand.

  “Gray,” he said without taking it.

  “Oh, you’re Gray,” Elsie said, folding her hands back in her lap. “Mrs. Pickford was right. You are rough around the edges.”

  CHAPTER

  T EN

  PANCHITO AWOKE TO paramedics lifting him onto a stretcher. His head was throbbing and his vision was blurry. When he tried to sit up, someone guided him back down.

  “Don’t move, Parcheesi,” Farrell said. “They’re going to take you to the hospital.”

  Panchito forced his head up.

  “Where’s Gray Studebaker?”

  Farrell’s lips pressed into a pruney little oval. The big baby looked as if he were on the verge of tears.

  “He’s gone.”

  The paramedics were carrying Panchito through the dormitory, out through the hall. The foyer was lined with crippled boys on both sides, excitedly watching the procession of medics and the injured. The First Inaugural Polio Parade.

  “What do you recall?” Farrell asked, following behind the stretcher. “You remember that I wasn’t there, don’t you? I was in the dining hall, taking care of the other boys as is my duty. I had nothing to do with this.”

  Panchito remembered going into the dormitory, finding two little men rummaging through Gray’s things. They were looking for something. He shouted at them, told them to stop. That’s when a third scoundrel appeared and hit him on the back of head. The coward.

  “Those men,” Panchito said. “Where are they?”

  “Those odious dwarves?” Farrell said. “They’re tied up in the printing room. The police will be here any moment to arrest them.”

  “The police!”

  Panchito tried to sit up, but Farrell forced him back down.

  “I’ll have them restrain you if you don’t sit still.”

  Panchito swiped Farrell’s hand away and rolled himself off the stretcher. He fell to the floor, breaking his fall with his belly more than his hands. The paramedics set down the stretcher to lift him back on.

  “Stop struggling,” Farrell said. “I doubt you’ll get very far without your wheelchair.”

  “I won’t hold your doubt against you,” Panchito said. “I’m used to being underestimated.”

  Panchito jumped to his feet. The other boys gasped. Farrell grabbed him by the arm.

  “Who are you?”

  Panchito puffed out his chest.

  “I am José Doroteo Arango Alameda, son of José Doroteo Arango Arámbula—revolutionary and hero of the Mexican people! Cuidado!”

  He pushed Farrell aside and jumped over the stretcher, parting the sea of boys. It felt good to move his legs after two days of pretending to be bound to a wheelchair. Everyone watched as he escaped, but they were too stunned to follow.

  He ran for the workshop. Mary Pickford would be furious if the police got involved. She had ordered Panchito to keep an eye on Gray for the past week, when the first of the actresses went missing. Panchito had no idea who Gray was, or why he was important, but it wasn’t his job to ask questions. It was his job to protect.

  Even if the one you’re protecting is a big crumb.

  Pickford had only meant for him to keep an eye on the boys’ home from afar, but that was as tedious as watching a record spin. So Panchito had decided to infiltrate the home by borrowing a wheelchair from the prop room at United Artists. Pickford wouldn’t be happy when she found out.

  The lights were on in the printing room, and the windows outside were black. Panchito found the little men back to back, tied together around a big leg of one of the heavy work tables. He grabbed a pair of sharp scissors from the cutting table and with dramatic flair brought it against the man who seemed to be the leader, the one with the derby hat and crowded teeth.

  “Who are you working for? I swear on my father’s grave I will slit your throat if you don’t speak.”

  “Kiss off,” the man said. “Who are you, Zorro’s fat son?”

  “I am José Doroteo Arango—”

  “Yeah, we heard you the first time from all the way in here,” the bald man said.

  “You’re bonkers, kid,” the ringleader said. “You and your whole immigrant family.”

  Panchito punched him in the face. A sharp pain shot up Panchito’s wrist and he winced, shaking it out. He had never actually hit anyone before and it smarted something fierce. The ringleader, however, seemed completely unfazed.

  “You’ll pay for that someday, kid.”

  “You’ll pay for offending me and disrespecting my family name.”

  Panchito brought the scissors back to his throat.

  “Now, answer my original question. Or is there an ear you’d rather not have?”

  A police siren blared from somewhere outside. Somewhere close. Panchito muttered a curse in Spanish. He couldn’t let the cops take these men. The investigators would want to know why they were there and what they were looking for. Then they’d start asking questions about Pickford and Gray, and who knows where that might lead.

  Panchito slid underneath the table with the scissors, crawling behind the men. They all tried to crane their necks behind them.

  “Hey donut, what’re you doing under there?”

  Panchito cut the rope that was tied around the table leg, freeing the men. The rope fell loose around their chests, but they still had their hands tied together.

  Panchito crawled back out as they were standing up.

  “Go free,” Panchito said. “You are too weak and inconsequential for me to deal with.”

  The dwarf with a hooked nose took an awkward two-handed swipe at Panchito. It hit him across the cheek but didn’t hurt him very much.

  “Try saying that when our hands are free,” the man said.

  The bald dwarf kneed Panchito in the stomach, and as he doubled over, the one with the derby hat kicked him to the floor.

  Everyone froze when a pounding came from the front door. They heard it open, and Farrell’s nasal voice was directing officers toward the printing room.

  “Let’s scram,” one of them said.

  The three men ran out the back door of the workshop. Panchito willed himself up and stumbled out after them. The men ran straight, toward the tire factory upstream, so Panchito turned right, toward the river. He took only a few steps before slipping and tumbling the rest of the way down the bank. He landed in a pile of rotting garbage that was wet and moldy from the trickle of water running through it.

  Panchito lo
oked back up. In the moonlight he saw the little men hopping a low wall into the grounds of the tire factory.

  One day I’ll be strong, and then you’ll all be sorry.

  CHAPTER

  E LEVEN

  THE CIRCUS TENT in front of Gray looked like a living, breathing beast. It rustled and swelled from the heat of the lights, the steaming popcorn machines, and the breath of a thousand people.

  They had lost Pickford’s Buick in the morass of cars in the dirt parking lot of Gilmore Stadium. The tent itself was pitched at the center of the lot.

  Gray and Elsie stood on the outside of a green velvet rope.

  Always on the wrong side of a rope.

  They didn’t have tickets, or any money left to purchase them.

  “Now what?” Elsie asked.

  “Follow me.”

  They weaved their way through a tangle of cars until they were on the backside of the tent. The canvas had once been striped red and white, but had faded to a sickly pink and a dirty brown. Given enough time, the two colors would meet at some putrid hue in-between.

  With Elsie on lookout, Gray dug out one of the metal stakes. He then lifted the thick canvas, which was heavy as a sack of barley. Elsie knelt down on the muddy grass and crawled through on hands and knees. Gray followed.

  They found themselves underneath rickety wooden bleachers, packed with excitable children and weary parents. Elsie’s white gloves were now soiled. She pulled them off and threw them to the ground with a little huff.

  “I smell like a barnyard animal and this dress is ruined.”

  The audience clapped at something, and Elsie clamped her eyes shut and grabbed her head. Gray saw flashes of color swirl around her.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You got the female hysterics?”

  “That’s not a thing!” she said. “There’s just a lot of people here. They’re all very excited. And my nails are filthy!”

  She focused on picking out dirt from under her nails, and that seemed to calm her down. Gray frowned and turned away.

  She’s crackers.

  They sat through an acrobatics show they couldn’t see because their view was blocked by the bleachers. Bits of popcorn and peanuts fell upon them. Elsie grumbled and took to picking crumbs out of her hair.

  “Who is it we’re looking for, exactly?” she asked.

  Before he could answer, the lights went dark and drums rumbled. A spotlight turned on to reveal a person unlike any Gray had ever seen. He was more monster than man—big and burly, with arms thick as cannons and a torso the size and shape of an industrial ice box. His black mustache was bushy enough to house a family of nesting sparrows.

  Someone shaved down King Kong and put him in the circus.

  “That fella,” he said.

  A thick steel chain was wrapped tightly around the man’s bare chest five or six times. He walked to the center of the ring, bowed to the audience, and then with seemingly little effort, flexed his chest and back muscles. The chains exploded off him and links clattered to the ground like loose change.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” an announcer shouted through a megaphone. “The person you have come here to see: Darko Atlas—the strongest man on Earth!”

  The audience applauded.

  “Aces!” Elsie said. “Now we know who it is. Let’s get out of here and call the police.”

  She half stood under the bleachers but Gray grabbed her dress sleeve.

  “Not yet.”

  Atlas walked to the side of the ring and picked up a steel rod about three feet long and an inch wide. He bent it with his hands as if it were a piece of modeling clay. He created small loops, intricate and uniform. The steel began to take shape, an elegant flower on a stem with two leaves. He gave it to a woman in the front row, but it was too heavy for her to hold. The audience applauded.

  As Gray watched, he noticed a glowing layer covering Atlas. It looked as if the surface of his skin were encrusted with translucent crystals.

  Was this really the man abducting all the women? The man who Mary Pickford claimed was chasing her? Who knew things about Gray’s past? If Pickford refused to give him answers, maybe this Darko Atlas would.

  “Calm down,” Elsie said. “You’re getting all worked up.”

  “Don’t worry about me, dollface. Worry about your nails.”

  What is she, a mind reader?

  “For my next feat, I will need two participants from the audience,” Atlas said. People murmured to each other. Everyone seemed afraid to get near him.

  “We’ll do it!”

  The words had come out of Gray’s mouth before he knew what he was doing. People turned to see where the voice had come from.

  “I’m not going out there,” Elsie said. “If he’s the Star Stalker, he’ll kill us.”

  Even if Atlas were dangerous, they’d be safe in front of an audience. It was the perfect place to question him.

  He tightened his grip on Elsie’s sleeve and dragged her out from under the bleachers with him.

  “Who said that?” Atlas asked.

  “I did,” Gray said.

  Gray approached the rope blocking the entrance to the ring. It was thick and fibrous, the kind that might be used on a boat.

  “This is madness,” Elsie said. “Let’s leave while we can.”

  Gray stepped over, but had to unlatch it to drag Elsie into the ring.

  Finally, he was on the inside of a rope.

  “And what is your name?” Atlas asked as he met Gray and Elsie halfway from the center.

  “Marlowe,” Gray said.

  “Like the private eye?” Atlas asked.

  Gray nodded and tipped his fedora.

  “Then this must be your femme fatale,” Atlas said, smiling to Elsie. There was meat stuck between his big yellow teeth, a piece larger than most of Gray’s dinners.

  “I don’t know him,” Elsie said.

  “Do you two like the circus?” Atlas asked.

  “Not especially,” Gray said.

  Atlas leaned in close.

  “Neither do I. Come along.”

  Gray pulled Elsie with him to the center of the ring, where some assistants had brought out a thick steel barbell that had a large basket secured on each end.

  Atlas addressed the audience.

  “I will now lift these two young persons over my head with just one arm, using this special barbell.”

  He turned to Gray and Elsie.

  “Get in the baskets.”

  Gray crouched down into one of the baskets. Elsie reluctantly followed suit. Atlas walked up to the bar that connected them and cracked the knuckles on his massive fists. Gray recalled how Pickford said his father had died: He was punched.

  If it were true, maybe Gray could catch Atlas off guard.

  “You killed my father,” Gray said in a low voice.

  “What’s that?”

  Atlas took a deep breath and yanked up on the bar. He dropped under it and caught it at chest level. Elsie let out a little yelp and Gray grabbed onto the sides of the basket for support.

  The audience watched in silent wonder.

  “I said you killed my father.”

  In the center of the ring, no one else could hear them. Atlas took a deep breath as he adjusted his hand position.

  “You’ll have to be more specific. I’ve killed a lot of people.”

  With a sudden dip and then a jerk upward, Atlas thrust the barbell straight up over his head, locking out his arm. The crowd roared with applause.

  Gray looked down and could see Atlas’s head just below him.

  “His name was Harry. You punched him.”

  The bar swayed suddenly and Gray’s hat fell off onto the dirt floor. Atlas regained control and with a careful descent he brought the bar to his chest and then lowered it back to the ground. People in the audience clapped and cheered, but Atlas only gave them a cursory bow.

  Gray stood up in the basket. Atlas sized him up, taking in the gash on Gray’s brow. It had
reopened under the friction of his fedora.

  “Who are you?” the strongman asked.

  Atlas looked at it with fascination, and Gray knew he was seeing the unnatural blackness of the blood, the way it seemed to both swallow light and reflect it at the same time.

  “What are you?”

  Gray reached to cover the cut but Atlas reached for his hand to pull it away. The moment they touched, Gray jolted. It felt as if electricity were running between the two of them.

  “What’s this?”

  Gray felt weak. He tried to pull away but was powerless against the giant man’s grip.

  “Mr. Atlas?”

  The voice rang out from the edge of the ring. Atlas looked up.

  Mary Pickford, veiled in black, was standing inside the ring.

  “You must be Mrs. Pickford,” Atlas said. “I was just sending a car for you.”

  “I know,” she said, walking up to him. “I’m saving you the trouble.”

  There was the sound of a shot fired, and Atlas looked down in surprise at his torso. There, buried in his chest, was a bullet. People in the audience screamed, and those in the front row were the first to stand up, unsure of what to do.

  Atlas looked at Pickford, who was holding a gun camouflaged within the black folds of her dress.

  “I’m the femme fatale you’re looking for.”

  Pickford shot again, and this time it hit him on the right side of his abdomen. But instead of going through him, the bullet bounced off his skin and fell to the ground at Atlas’s feet. Gray had seen it hit the crystalline energy that was encrusted over the strongman’s skin.

  Atlas reached down and picked at the first bullet still lodged in his chest. It pulled out easily and, underneath it, the skin was unbroken. The bullets weren’t any more harmful to him than soft peas.

  Pickford held her gun up as if to figure out what was wrong with it. Women screamed and grabbed their children. Men shouted and grabbed their wives. Everyone in the audience scrambled for the door, trampling each other and pushing their way out.

  Pickford turned her head slightly to look at Gray. Atlas followed her gaze.

  “This young man,” Atlas said. “Which one is he?”

  He grabbed Gray roughly by the collar of his jacket.